Crafting and adventuring should be intervowen

I'm not a crafter - I don't belong in this thread c(: But just wanted to throw out an idea that would make master crafters useful and keep them being useful, if the best items they can craft is not as good as the best items dropped from raids. For the rare/elite items that ARE dropped from raids, a master crafter could be needed to repair that elite item to 100%. A normal NPC repair person would only be able to repair these 'elite' pieces of gear to 75...maybe 80? percent, due to them not having the skill required to repair such a high quality item. Possibly some not too hard to get, but still needs a little effort to get materials are required by the master crafter to repair these elite items to 100%. Master crafters who put the time and effort into getting there, would always be needed.

I don't really hold any expectations about crafting for this game simply because it's an afterthought at best for a AAA mmo, I can only imagine what it will be like for this.

In terms of what really matters; the usefulness and longevity of gear crafted by people who put the work into leveling up a craft...I think they have that precept down pat.

In terms of the action itself? I can't see it being anything other than GW2 style menu-based click and go crafting. I can't see this game ending up with something as involved and fun as the FFXIV crafting mini-games, for instance. Perhaps I'm wrong...but I have a feeling the ACT of crafting will be as simple as it gets. I'm okay with that as long as it actually MATTERS though.

I don't really hold any expectations about crafting for this game simply because it's an afterthought at best for a AAA mmo, I can only imagine what it will be like for this.

In terms of what really matters; the usefulness and longevity of gear crafted by people who put the work into leveling up a craft...I think they have that precept down pat.

In terms of the action itself? I can't see it being anything other than GW2 style menu-based click and go crafting. I can't see this game ending up with something as involved and fun as the FFXIV crafting mini-games, for instance. Perhaps I'm wrong...but I have a feeling the ACT of crafting will be as simple as it gets. I'm okay with that as long as it actually MATTERS though.

Kajidourden - did you play WildStar at all? They had a unique crafting system for recipe discovery (in a couple professions), as well as crafting a learned recipe for a few of the crafts. It was a bit akin to playing darts. The recipe you *wanted* to craft was at an X/Y coord on a circular recipe board. You had to combine certain elements (earth, air, fire, water) in certain ways to bring your dart closer to the target you wanted. If it locked in, you got that item. Not all professions worked that way, but the discovery part can be infurating (when you keep failing) and amazing (when you finally get the recipe discovered).

I do really like the idea of talent trees or skill points for crafting that let crafters customize their style a bit more. I think that gives it some value and depth above just "Oh, I need a level 10 green belt. *click*"

@AgentGenX - that's an interesting idea and one I'd not thought of before. Other than a couple games that give you repair kits, it's usually R-Click Vendor > Repair > Esc to close window.

I feel the best way to interweave crafting and adventuring is by making almost all adventuring gear crafted. That cloak of flame? Not dropped straight from a dragon but a combine of regular cloak pattern + a fire gland from Nagafen (maybe a couple dragon scales for good measure too). That FBSS? a belt made from magic cloth salvaged from the torn cloak of that frenzied frog. But i fear we will never see this as people get too excited from epic drops and not so much crafting materials.

As for crafting itself, I do hope a VG/FF14 kind of systems will be used. It's so much more fun that just combining in a forge. And it actually slows down progression a bit even if you get infinite supplies by your friends.

Crafting sure does need to be more meaningful and I do like the idea of tieing it into adventuring. Crafted gear also needs to be equal to top end game gear, but maybe that could be thru raids component drops or decon'd raid gear items making components.

What would be compelling would be raid drops that only fit a certain race, but could be crafting altered to fit certain other classes ( a Pixie tunic ain't ever going to fit an Ogre :) etc )

I want to see crafting gear that is better than what may be bought in what ever Marketing Store the game will have.

However, I do not think that crafted gear should be equal to top end raid gear, or to epic gear either.

I loved EQ's original gear. As a new Shadowknight on day one of the launch, I was born wearing underware tunic and pants and barefoot. I had no weapon. I did have a note to take to my ingame Guild Leader. Once delievered I got a Tunic. As the game progresssed:

I killed with bare hands to get a rusty sword drop, which I then sharpened on a smith anvil. I bought a sewing kit, and used dropped hide to make a set of cloth armor.

I fished up a pair of sandals, along with rusty knives and fish I could eat.

From the patchwork cloth armor I went to leather armor and from there to chain mail. From there to plate. And in between worked on my Shadowknight specific armor (wearing it in my profile icon).

My caster went from patchwork to silk to worked silk to class specific armor.

Each race/class did this.

Tailors/smiths learned to craft high level armor as they leveled.

We learned to recognize the class/level of those we saw around us, and to an extent their skill, based on what they were wearing. At that time, before twinking, if a warrior was wearing plate - it was becasue he earned it.

I want to see crafting with skill involved. And the need to adventure to find what I need. I don't think crafting should be tied into group requirements until high levels are reached.

If the crafting is handled well, it will take time to learn it, and being required to spend a great deal of time in dungeon groups may slow it down a little too much.

In addition, besides not being boring, it should be done in a way that makes adventurers need crafters, and that also makes crafters need adventurers. Interdependency is a good thing, a healthy relationship for a MMO.

I agree that crafting and adventuring should be interwoven. I'm sure your example isn't the only possibility either. There's a wide range of ideas that can be developed. As long as it wasn't always required or necessary to have some crafter (or a specific crafter of a specific level) along for a good dungeon crawl then I don't see why the idea couldn't be part of the adventuring system for some of the content.

I still feel that craftspeople should be producing the best items in game from components dropped from raid encounter mobs.

I also have no problem with making some of those components no-drop so the master craftsman has to be on the raid in order to obtain the item.

Yes, there are some people who don't want to adventure and only like to craft. Also true that some people don't like to craft and only adventure. Similarly there are people who play very casually and don't max out the level of their characters or those who choose not to raid.

Why should top tier or raid level drops be available to people who opt not to partake of that content? Similarly why should raid level crafting elements be available to the craftsperson who never strays more than 10 feet from their crafting station?

There can still be dropped items in raids that are awesome drops. There can still be some very nice gear that craftspeople will make from more readily available components. But let's reward the brave smith who is willing to stare down the dragon with something that his less adventuresome neighbour can't achieve.

The very top tier equipment should be a notch above what the adventurer alone or the craftsperson alone is able to achieve without independence on the other. If you want to make that amazing breastplate, you need to be on the raid to collect the no-drop dragon scale, then take it back to the forges, along with other components (probably including other difficult to find elements) and and create something new and amazing from the raw bits.

Also those 90 percentile items that are pretty sweet drops from the raid mobs, those could perhaps be imbued or further enhanced in some way by top level artisans.

I would see there being a heirarchy of items in ascending order:

Noob gear given at birth of your character

Gear crafted by players from common items

Dropped gear from mobs

Imbued/Improved dropped gear

Rare drops from mobs up to raid level

Imbued/Improved rare gear

New items crafted by master artisans from the rarest of components from raid level mobs

As you are starting out, you'll have your basic gear, but you'll need to do a combination of adventuring and seeking out craftspeople to help you improve your equipment. Initially buying rudimentary armor from the marketplace, hanging out near the forges, befriending smiths, perhaps trading your skill with the sword or raw materials you've collected for finished bronze armor. Go off and adventure, find some interesting upgrades and bring them back to your smithy friends to see if they can further improve them, better fit them, remove the rust, sharpen the edges, take out the dents in your helm, etc... This symbiosis between you and your friends at the forges can continue as they improve their skill and you grow in prowess as an adventurer. Eventually you'll strike out together on quests to find those rare drops, new crafting recipes or make advanced crafting tools.

Crafting quests, over blind repetion of recipes would be a greatly improved way to level up skills. Travel the world, find rare components to make advanced crafting tools. Find new recipes. find NPCs who are willing to teach you new styles or techniques. Perhaps gain a skill or two from another player who has mastered your profession. Grand masters in any crafting profession should be more than people who clicked their way through 10,000 combines. Achieving the highest level in your crafting profession should be an epic accomplishment such that these members of the community have real value and their achievements worthy of song.

The problem of course is that in most games crafting has been done as a bolt-on afterthought so we've not had real integration of the crafting and adventuring communities. In a lot of these games it has felt like adventuring and crafting were developed by two separate dev teams that only met occasionally at the water cooler.

Whether crafted gear or high-end raid drops are the best obtainable items is such a compromising topic. One one hand, you expect to be rewarded for clearing the high-end content. And be rewarded sufficiently. If crafters made the best gear then the only benefit from clearing the highest level content is the satisfaction from doing so, faction standing, some other intangible reward? Raiders will not appreciate this much.

On the other hand, the crafters feel let down when whatever they create is mostly subpar with anyting else at end game.

So yeah, integration at some level seems like a workable solution. Perhaps ideally, you obtained certain items from high level raids but you needed to have crafters to work their skills in order to utilize the items. Maybe some items crafters made are the best and others are high level drops?

I am a fan of the 'spheres' approach.. but a proper and verisimilous 'spheres' approach.

To explain 'proper' by using a bad example of the above, take VGSoH. Spheres in theory alone, because in practice they were interwoven with combat, or to be exact, activities that would inevitably, sooner or later, resort to a combat scenario. So you didn't have 'spheres', you had multiple aspects of that one activity.. kill-kill-kill-kill.

I would have prefered a scenario where there was a compromising between an actual implementation of:

- Distinct, separate spheres (a lvl3 warrior can be a lvl 50 crafter) ((no, not a-la EQ2, because unless you leeched your guild's mats off, you couldn't get crafting high without entering zones, ie without entering combat mode one way or the other))

- A dual mode in terms of outcome, qualitatively speaking.

Why? You can have true(tm) dedicated crafters, not the faux choice kind we've seen advertised but never delivered, and at the same time (we need be fair to everyone), restrict quality reagents AND hard-to-get-by materials in high level zones, hard group content scenarios, et cetera. So that while you could and would have separate spheres?

iii) a nice balance would be achieved while simultaneously not only allowing for diverse playstyles, but also keeping everyone on fair terms.

iv) there'd be one more thing to do, for you, the player, when you had enough with the kill-kill-kill scenario..

Surely some of you must have reached a stage, at any a day, where you wanted something different, or an ingame break from combat, but .. nothing to do. So you'd 'park' in a city/guildhall, and spam the /g chat. Yeah? Why not have more options? One can keep the crafting as hardcore as one may please (where to put the good stuff, how and what an investment to take prior to having a chance at it) while simultaneously, actually encouraging player diversity.

So TLDR, not a fan of keeping them interwoven. It is a byproduct that has stayed with us since forever, for no other reason that lack of foresight, or failure to understand player mentality (how they thought they need to entice us, how they thought by mixing stuff in together they'd 'force' us to engage in them and so on, how they pushed play time along, et al.)

There is the 'meta' aspect in all things. Some twenty odd years later, players know what they want, how hard or easy it must be prior to examining it. This indirect dev-induced patronising that results in nothing but restriction is something that leaves me at best indifferent. Since you can have both and easily at that :)

I am not sure I agree with crafters being forced into raids or groups to craft. Generally, crafting is a relaxing and solo part of my game. I think crafters should have the ability to focus strongly on their crafting to a degree that they even sacrifice some of their strength in battle...afterall, that's what they are best at is crafting. It also allows for you to create a crafter alt or so.

I did not like WoW rare drops that the crafter had to be present to get. Running a raid 100 times to get whatever ingredient you needed to make an epic piece of armor that would be outdated in a month anyway haha...Please let's make this less about endgame and more about the art of being good at what you work hard at.

There are wayyyyy too many games that are a gear grind and an end game grind. Let's get back to a sandbox and not a grind.

I like the concept but while everyone else is having fun killing spawns while one player is crafting and what happens if the only crafter available at the time is the main tank or healer? Good idea but I think that the items need to be collected and an npc is there to craft said item for you also once the item is made that player should retain the ability to enter the area with out doing the crafting part again so like it was mentioned everyone need to get flagged/keyed/attuned to the area. I also think crafters should make top quality gear same as raid gear but it needs to be just as hard to get the recipe and then as hard to get the mats as the raid gear face it the crafter has a better chance of getting top end gear faster because they can make the gear even if they fail to attain it during a raid. Or make is not quite as good say T 0.5 instead of T 1 this way your off classes such as dps as they are the last to get good gear from raids usually it's tank healer then dps that get to grab loot. Unless of course there are raid bosses that only drop gear for DPs players which can not be skipped to go further on and get other classes gear first. I must admit I have rarely seen raid bosses that dropped loot for on specific class type. Oh wrong spot but is it possible that if loot is going to drop for a class type that it can be for one of the classes in the group/raid? Many times I have finished killing a boss and for example tank loot drops but it goes to waste because it's for a warrior and we have a paladin tanking Or healer gear for a Druid drops but a cleric is healing. I'm sure a lot have run into this before.

I hope they lay the foundation for a great turn based crafting system similar to Vanguard but I don't think we need to go much beyond simple items and consumables for the initial release.

Leave the deeper crafting for future expansions and just get the world as fleshed out as possible imo.

If it comes between getting some more zones or a fully fleshed out crafting system on launch I'll take the zones.

Thanks,

Kiz~

I hope both are given equal priority and even if the game is delayed, that they are of sutable quality to hold players. If crafting is done right, and all items need to br craftyed than that is a given, If the crafting system is over simplified and drops jusy dcome from the world as in many other games, I will play this, but as I do with all other MMOs, just to experience it then mvoe on after cap and geared. THis game needs to eb deeper or it will be another samey release. TO suggest any part of the game can be left out for me kills the game.

Good post and I also think the two should be connected on several fronts. Skill mastery and faction too. I think people that don't like crating always thought it was a long drawn out process that made watching paint dry look fun. Interaction and integrated to a story line and or maybe a region quest to help out a village for example. There is not a rule book out there that says VR has to lump this into the status quo of MMO's and the abysmal methods of in game deployment. They have time to seriously look at ideas like this one. I would support it for sure. It is interesting and has a wide range of positive impacts on the game play and dynamics of the game.

I think crafters should be able to make gear that is equitable to the best drops in game, either via mat drops from raid bosses or accessing a forge at the end of a raid dungeon that can be accessed once the boss is defeated. Or a combination of both. I've always liked the idea of rare crafted pieces being done with forges or other crafting instruments accessed in places that needed to be cleared.

I think crafters should be able to make gear that is equitable to the best drops in game, either via mat drops from raid bosses or accessing a forge at the end of a raid dungeon that can be accessed once the boss is defeated. Or a combination of both. I've always liked the idea of rare crafted pieces being done with forges or other crafting instruments accessed in places that needed to be cleared.

We should take the hint from Tolkien on this one. If the ring needed the fires of Mt.Doom to be forged, then raid/epic gear should need special epic forges found through adventure

I like the idea of making crafting important. What I don't like is making people craft. There's a big difference.

With the OP's suggestion if I could take 'molding puddy' into the dungeon and use it on the door, then take it and the right materials to a crafter they could create the key for me. Alternatively there is a forge somewhere in the dungeon and if we have a guy in the party he could do the same without us having to leave and come back later. Options, no forcing people to do it, just making it something you have to have done.

As far as raid armor, I feel the same way there, having a smithy,tailor,or jeweler fit the armor to you boosts it's stats, so the best armor will always involve some crafting.

I think many games fail with crafting in that it's not good enough to be worthwhile. Others force people to do it themselves to get things, and that's equally annoying on the other side. I'd like to not have a pendulum swing, but to just get that middle ground. I want a master tailor to constantly have a line of people trying to get their brand new pants fitted. But, I don't want that tailor to have to come on the adventure if they don't want to, nor do I want to have to do my own crafting to fit them myself.

I agree with most of whats written here. The overriding opinion (it seems to me) is that current crafting is a tedious afterthought that offers nothing but a grind.

I want a game where crafting is as important a mechanic as adventuring, raiding, exploring and social activities. Interwoven into everyday gaming. On another thread there is chat about recipes only available through certain dungeons, I want this expanded to include differing factions and areas (even down to village level or tribe levels). I want crafting to be as social as the adventuring is going to be. Make the best items reliant on other trade skills. Cooperation between crafting groups and parties (maybe - not sure how this would work, but it would be something I havent come across before).

Make crafted items as desirable as dropped loot, but the best items require ingredients that have to be retrieved by adventuring and maybe prepared in certain ways that take time and effort. This if used properly would slow down the availability of the best crafted goods and so doesnt make crafted items flood the market at the expense of dropped loot. I would like to see characters change their gear between crafted and dropped items throughout the character's life span.

I love the idea that quests and dungeons and general adventuring could create crafters with unique or rare recipes and blueprints. I really dont want to see crafting based solely on grinding the production of items. Where every master crafter is that same. Make crafting become a part of the game lore. Create grand master NPC crafters in the world that will teach you a new skill or a new technique, but only if you do something for them. Whether it is money or a quest of some kind. Faction, beliefs, character roles should also come into it. I would love to see a rogue specific line of blueprints (traps, bombs, specialised lock picks, gear to help with concealment, etc.), or a ranger specific line (specialised bows that increase/decrease damage, range, accuracy, style, wilderness survival items, campfires, tents, game traps). All roles could have dedicated lines based on the role's needs.

I would love to see each character have a set of standard recipes for their chosen profession, but then able to expand that due to master training, adventuring and just plain luck.

I agree with Jerus:

I like the idea of making crafting important. What I don't like is making people craft. There's a big difference.

It should be up to the individual if they want to craft or not. But I believe that most people who dont want to craft, dont because it is just not an interesting aspect of the game and is seen as tedious. If it was in depth and interwoven with the game play, interesting and added to that character's reputation, then people would be more willing to try it out. Also, drops that are crafting based have to be transferable for those that really dont want to take part in it, so they can be sold or given away as they see fit.

Saoirse: Love the questing ideas. However, don't make them mandatory for advancing your crafting.

I dont think that any quest line (adventure or crafting) should be mandatory. However, over the basic recipes, I think unique/rare items should be attainable by other game mechanics other than grinding. For the adventureous, they should be attainable when playing generally and specifically from quests and other ways.

I do agree with the OP to an extent. For those rare armor or weapons pieces I think the the "special" components should come from grouping or raiding. Regular standard high end gear come from other normal means ( via nodes, gathering and crafting in towns,cities or villages).